Preserving shad

A friend of mine told me recently of a way to preserve shad for an extended time. Net your shad and dump them on the grass or any surface and let the slime drain off. Next roll them in cornmeal, bag them and put them in the freezer. He packages maybe 8-10 nice baits and freezes them. When he goes fishing he will take a package out and put it in the cooler. As he slowly uses the bait and he has a few leftover after the day, he puts them in the frig for the night if he is going the next day. If there is any left after the second day he then pitches them for a fresh package. He has been doing this for years and, apparently, 5-6 months later the shad are good and have a good fishy odor. I have known this man for 20+ years and fished with him for years. He loves catching his blues from the bank.

Never heard of that! But i have found out first hand that if you freeze them straight out of the bucket they turn to mush when they thaw..... That may be some sort of dry freeze that helps them keep.

yes they do. The friend that told me how to handle them has been a cat fisherman for 30 years. I am going to try it.

Don't understand why he lets them dry. I know a lot of people that does that but rolls them in cornmeal when they are fresh and then bags them for the freezer. The oil the shad produces is one of the top fish attractors. If they are dried out, they can no longer produce the oil. The people I know that did this were taking them to another lake where shad were hard to get. You will figure out real quick if the lake you are fishing has a high shad population, frozen shad will not work very well. If the shad population is way down then they will catch fish. I try to keep mine for 2 no longer than 3 days in a ziplock bag on ice with dead red or another catfish attractant on them. Never had any luck after they were froze.

I will give it a try; but don't think I will let'em dry out.

Tim - I did not say let the shad dry out. I said let the slime drain off. Please read it again. Then corn meal them and freeze. The fish are fresh just drained of the slime, that only takes a few minutes.. The friend lives on Lake Eufaula and lives in Eufaula, Ok.

There are 2 kinds of shad in our area. The most predominant one is the gizzard shad. There are some threadfin shad also. The gizzard shad produces a lot more oil than the threadfin. I know the striper guides prefer the threadfin and the catfishermen prefer the gizzard shad. His method may work I'm just saying I know people that's done it for years and they do it different. My guess is if you want to keep the shad for over a year in the freezer you would probably have to (drain them) in order to keep them. Personally I would rather use cut bait such as perch, crappie rib cages caught on rod/reel after they are filleted or even hot dog wieners soaked in strawberry pop than any kind of frozen bait. The only frozen bait I know of that can and will catch fish is shad gizzards and they are very expensive if you have to buy them.

I salt mine real heavy and bag them up in zip lock bags . They freeze well .